My last post was about the deleterious effects that the extremists in any "big tent" operation can have on the perceptions people have of the whole.
How could I have overlooked citing the example of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former minister who is now complaining that the Obama administration has thrown him under a bus and won't listen to a thing he says. Duh! Can he really be surprised? Of course he has a right to voice any views he wants, but having made statements he must have known would be embarrassing to the Presidential candidate, he had to realize what he said could - almost certainly would - work against the interests of nearly everybody in the tent. We can also assume that he was asked, initially, to tone down the rhetoric, but he didn't take that hint. So perhaps two wrongs make a Wright.
Oddly, people with radical ideas are often the sort who think their views have to be aired at any time, in any context, and don't care "what other people think." It's egotism combined with the insularity of being on the fringe in the first place. No doubt the world needs such people but often they self-marginalize themselves. They jump in front of the bus; no one needs to throw them.
Comments